Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Claim "Effectively Perfect" Spam Blocking Discovery
A team of computer scientists from the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, CA are claiming to have found an "effectively perfect" method for blocking spam. The new system deciphers the templates a botnet is using to create spam and then teaches filters what to look for. "The system ... works by exploiting a trick that spammers use to defeat email filters. As spam is churned out, subtle changes are typically incorporated into the messages to confound spam filters. Each message is generated from a template that specifies the message content and how it should be varied. The team reasoned that analyzing such messages could reveal the template that created them. And since the spam template describes the entire range of the emails a bot will send, possessing it might provide a watertight method of blocking spam from that bot."
Oh, there's a final solution alright.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
1. Mash up dubious quality meat. 2. Insert into can.
I don't know how killing all the Jews will help worldwide spam. Everyone knows all spammers are Nigerian Princes.
Hooray for the good guys! Now if they could find something similar to fight viruses.
My pattern analysis indicates that if the Windows kernel tried to load it, it's a virus.
Oh, there's a final solution alright.
Hitler, is that you?
I'm all for stopping Spam, but genocide crosses the line.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Sure, I'll bite:
This group advocates a:
(X) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. The idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to the particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(X) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
(X) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
(X) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to this are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
(X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
(X) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about them:
(X) Sorry dudes, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and they're a stupid people for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0les! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
I am officially gone from
Formatting! Please use some proper formatting! my eyes are bleeding from your wall of text!
I, too, have designed a flawless spam filter. It works under similar principles, will filter 100% of incoming spam, will generate 0 false positives, and it's super easy to use:
if(is_spam(message)) { delete_message(message); }
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Creators recieve chance to increase wang size in 3...2...1...
Yeah, and I don't think all the spammers are Jews anyway.
It seems like "fails to account for (X) Asshats" is *always* the case.
Is it true, that perhaps "no one expects the asshats!"
..I don't see it.
Don't worry. I'm working on a filter for security puffery. Just wait for my press release. It'll blow you away. Promise.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Oh, there's a final solution alright.
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative ( ) market-based (X) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
( ) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
(X) The police will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
(X) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
( ) Asshats
( ) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of spam
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Since 95% of email is spam, just block it all.
No one will notice the statistically-insignificant 5% false positives.
Even that isn't guaranteed to work.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
> Hitler, is that you?
Godwin, is that you?
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Unplugging the ethernet cable DOESN'T COUNT.
I'm using my neighbor's WiFi you insensitive clod!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
OK, I can speak from personal knowledge: the Jews are NOT responsible for your SPAM.
The CB App. What's your 20?
I don't care if YOU JUST LIKE SCREAMING or if you're lysdexic or you english not good o si hablas otra idioma completamente, no quiero ver sus mensajes nada.
Is that really THAT HARD to implement? Really? If it's not at least 95% proper, coherent english, I just don't want to see it, spam or not. Plus there's a very short list of people I have any contact with on other continents. Aside from them, if it's not from north america, I don't want to see that either. Nothing from nigeria. Block it all.
But it's right there in the headline! In quotes! It must be true!
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
Can't lay bricks made from shit, you know.
Quick, someone call the Mythbusters! If they can polish it (and they did) then I'm sure they could make...
wait for it...
A SHIT BRICK HOUSE!!!
Hopefully it will block FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: RE: FW: FW: FW: from grandma too
Your post advocates a
() abusive
(x) checklist
() clever
(x) tired
approach to mockery. It won't work because
(x) the joke is too old
(x) nobody has the patience to read the whole thing
() we are above that
I did not know that Steve Gutenberg wrote books. I thought he was just a skilled actor.
He's only a start because of the stonecutters.
http://michaelsmith.id.au